When our forefathers crafted the constitution, they intended our government to preserve safety, to ensure liberty, and to promote peace. However, as Thoreau stated in Civil Disobedience, “most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes inexpedient.” Government, and the democratic system, is not always the most effective way to ensure justice to all. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society because it gives a voice to the minority, provides the people with an ultimate check on government, and allows for a morality based society. In a democratic country, the majority wields the bulk of the political power. Since democracy literally means rule of the many, the largest group controls the system. According to …show more content…
Refusing to obey laws brings those laws to the attention of the legislature and the majority. Consider the recent controversy over the Dakota Access pipeline. The government planned to build an oil pipeline through land belonging to the Standing Rock Native American tribe. Through peaceful resistance, protesters halted the progress of the pipeline, which would cause great harm to wildlife and the people who rely on it. Many protesters were arrested, but the arrests brought great media attention to the issue, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed by the …show more content…
Morris Leibman claimed in his essay Civil Disobedience: A Threat to Society, that laws lose their effectiveness when obedience becomes optional. However, peaceful resistance poses no threat to law and order, since protesters are prosecuted, just like everyone else who breaks the law. Civil disobedience works not to destroy the law, but to bring attention to areas that are unjust. In fact, peaceful resistance makes the system more democratic because it puts emphasis on important issues and encourages people to vote on those